A Week of Ups and Downs

This week we were again reminded of how blessed we are to be surrounded by good people and good friends.

We left the farm on a Monday saying good bye to Dylan, Bob and DeAnne. We hope to see them in the spring for planting! We did not say a final goodbye to Holly, Chris and the kids as we will be seeing them at the end of the week for Chris’ sister’s wedding.

 We had a whirlwind week planned with a stop in a different place every night. Our first stop was our friend Dan and Jeannie’s a mere hour from the farm. I have known Dan since high school and is actually Chris’ uncle. The unlikely thing about both Chris and Dan is that both were born and raised in the suburbs of the Twin Cities of MN and both migrated to the remote prairie of ND. Dan and Jeannie own a 900 acre waterfowl hunting operation. Even though it is approaching their busy time, they actually closed down for the season and will have the place basically to themselves!

We spent the afternoon visiting then Dan and I went for a ride on the property while Jeannie and Barb played accordions. We could not think of a better time to leave them to practice. As Dan and I drove around I reminisced about the years of duck seasons I had spent up here. There is nothing like sharing a duck blind that will bond friends for life. So many memories with my dogs Packer and Bailey as well as friends, many of them I have not seen in years.

Bright and early the next morning we hit the road on a super-secret mission we had been given and decided to accept. Our mission? To break into the Fortress of Isolation inhabited by none other than the infamous Tango Allejandro and Gladys Butterpump!

They must have heard of our plan as less than 10 minutes after leaving Dan and Jeannie’s we heard the familiar whop, whop, whop of a flat tire on gravel. I quickly pulled over, got out and did see a flat tire on the inner dually of the driver's side but the other thing I saw was even more concerning. The outer tire was almost completely off the truck and was laying sideways. All the lug nuts were gone and one lug was broken completely off! 

Hard to tell here but the inner tire was flat

Tango must have sent a secret operative out in the middle of the night to flatten our tire and steal all our lug nuts. To make matters worse we were still in the middle of a one lane gravel road and could not move it.

We called Dan who was going to slowly drive the 5 miles from his house and look for lug nuts while I went about changing the flat tire and getting the other tire back on the hub. I quickly ran into two problems. Problem #1….. the truck/camper combination was too heavy for the jack I had. Easy solution…lower the jacks and get the camper weight off the truck. Problem #2….With the camper on we could not get at the port to lower the spare tire with the camper on. Another easy solution…...just raise the camper higher and we could reach the port.

Meanwhile Dan had arrived and found no lug nuts on the road. Now what? We are a good 45 minutes from the smallest of towns minus 8 lug nuts!?!?? Then I was reminded of an incident Farmer Bob and I had the other day when we noticed a couple missing lug nuts on a piece of equipment. He just borrowed one from another tire. Genius! Except in my case I had to borrow 2 from each tire which left me 2 lugs short on all of the tires. I did not see this as an approved method in the owner’s manual but I had to make due.

We were soon on the road and about 30 minutes later were in the tiny metropolis of McClusky. One gas station, one grocery store, a bar and luckily one auto repair shop.  Unluckily for us they did not have any lug nuts for our particular truck so down the road we went. An hour later we pulled into NAPA in Carrington, ND and picked up a set of lug nuts, tightened them down and were on our way down the road and forging ahead with our mission.

Although Dino and Lisa, I mean Tango and Gladys knew we were coming they did not give us an address or directions to their fortress. Instead they gave us coordinates to a remote location in northwest Minnesota. Once we arrived we were told to walk into the middle of a corn field, hold hands and click our heals together and repeat “There is no place like the fortress, there is no place like the fortress….” Over and over again. Next thing we knew it was like we were flying in a third dimension, kinda like the matrix. We saw some pretty weird things in the matrix; flying cows, a sasquatch and I am pretty sure we saw Lisa riding a bike in the air with her cat Moose in the basket on the handle bars.

Then BOOM it was all over and we were in a white cylindrical tube and Lisa was sitting there next to us. Dino opened the hatch, let us out and we were at the Fortress of Isolation. When we emerged, our truck, camper, trailer and dogs were there waiting for us!

Arriving in the portal

Barb emerging from the portal

We had a great night with them. Dino and I took a 4 wheeler ride around their property, the leaves were changing and the contrast of the foliage and water was amazing. 

Their new home is coming right along. It looks like the perfect place to wait out the pandemic, zombie  apocalypse and the election. 

Barb and Lisa discuss the kitchen while Daisy looks ultra bored

We had steaks, a few beers, desert and a great night by the fire. Before we knew it it was time for bed.

Both Barb and I had the most peaceful night of sleep ever. When we woke up we were no longer at The Fortress but were again at the edge of that remote corn field where everything began the day before.

Perplexed but well rested we continued our journey east towards Wisconsin where we were to stay for the next three days. Day 1 was at our friends Doug and Connie. Although we saw Doug just a few weeks ago when he delivered our deer mounts, we have not seen Connie in quite a while. 

They own a great place on the bluff of the St. Croix River.

Day 2 we went to my sister Judy’s place about an hour north where we had dinner with my sister Carol, sister Judy and her husband Mike and my brother Bob and his wife Greta. It had been over a year since we have all been together and it was great to see them and hear everyone is doing well.

Sunset at sister Judy's

We spent the night in Judy and Mike’s spare lake lot which has some great views. After a breakfast with Judy and Mike the next morning in Balsam Lake we were on to my brother Bob’s house to pick up the last of our items that we have stored there for the past 5 years then back to Doug and Connie’s for the day. Doug and I spent the day cutting and splitting firewood. It is so therapeutic to be out in the woods just working.

So far our trip had been filled with highs with only one setback with the tire several days earlier. Had we known what was coming, we would have run to the nearest cornfield and started clicking our heels.

Saturday found us leaving Doug and Connie’s and heading to Minnesota where my friend Bob’s daughter (Chelsie) was getting married. It was an outdoor event at a local golf course. Chris, Holly and the kids were there as Chelsie is Chris’ sister. All of them were in the wedding. The little ones looked adorable in their little outfits. 

It was cloudy and overcast when we arrived. That turned to mist about 15 minutes before the wedding. When we were seated waiting for the ceremony it turned to rain. We all got pretty much soaked. One thing for sure is that this is a wedding none of us will soon forget! First down the aisle were the bridesmaids and groomsmen followed by Gavin, Chase and Calvin who were ring bearers. Gavin and Chase practically ran down the aisle leaving Calvin by himself in the middle of the aisle getting wet with about 100 strange people looking at him. You could see the terror in his eyes and he was about to cry until he saw Barb and dove into her arms. It was actually pretty funny.

Bob walking his daughter Chelsie down the aisle

A soggy start to their marriage

Holly and Chris. Do they look a little wet?!?

The ceremony was pretty quick and soon we were back inside drying off. We stayed at the reception for a couple of hours and decided to get a few hours of road time behind us as we had a long drive back to South Dakota. We only made it about an hour and a half that night before we were too tired to drive any further in the rain so we spent the night in a Walmart parking lot in Mankato, MN.

The next day we were on the road bright and early. It was really windy and we were making pretty good time. About an hour outside of Rapid City our check engine light came on. I thought, “Hmm, we will be home in 2 hours and I will put the code reader on it and see what it is”. An hour later we were going up a steep hill outside Rapid City when the engine lost power. Barb was driving and pulled over as fast as she could but by the time she pulled over the engine was making horrible noises. And when I say horrible, I mean horrible.

We sat there in disbelief for a few minutes on this busy road. We knew we were not going to make it home so we called Kevin and Cheryl for assistance. They were on the road within minutes to come rescue us. I was able to limp it to a turn off so we were at least in safe spot. I unhooked the trailer waiting for Kevin to arrive. Once he got there we put a tow strap on it and towed it about 7 miles to a diesel repair shop that we had been to before. Being Sunday, it was closed so we locked up the camper and just left it in the parking lot.

A sad sight, a Dodge pulling a GMC

Then it was back to the trailer where Barb and the dogs were waiting. We hooked that up to Kevin’s truck and on our way home again minus the truck and camper. That night I was talking to Jim and Brenda Jordan telling them of our woes. They offered to go to Rapid the next day with their truck to retrieve our camper. They were our saviors as we had no way to get it home and we later found out the mechanic could not work on the truck with the camper on.

So the next day we were off to retrieve our camper and talk to the mechanic. The camper transfer was kind of a challenge but we got it done. The mechanic started the truck for about 2 seconds, turned it off and said it was not good. The Jordan’s brought the camper to our place, backed it into the garage where it will sit for…..I don’t know how long but at least it was home.

Two days later we got a call from the repair shop with the news. We need a new engine. An internal bearing went out totally destroying the engine. The cost? I was prepared for and ready to accept a $10,000-$12,000 bill. What we found out is that we could probably get a rebuilt one (if we could find one) for that price but a new one is about $7,000 more. That brought us to a whole new level of depression. With 200,000 miles on the truck and long ago out of warranty we would have to foot the bill. We are going to take the weekend to see what our options are but are leaning towards the new engine.

This week was a good reminder of how lucky and blessed we are to have such great friends. Just the past 10 days or so we spent time with some of the greatest friends anyone could ever ask for from The Farm to seeing Dan and Jeannie, Doug and Connie, our friends at the wedding and especially Kevin, Cheryl, Jim and Brenda for being our rescuers the last few days! It would be easy to get totally depressed by an event like this but we have to remind ourselves that this situation is just temporary and next year at this time this will all be a distant memory…..